Show SLOW TO chand CHANGE NAMES OF CITIES americans not prone to make alterations since the nonstop aNia aviators tors from this country landed by the golden horn it I 1 is qs dawned on most of us for the first time that tl e turks have hane been changing the name of their great metropolis IN ve e may have I 1 eard of stamboul but never dreamed w m e w would h iv in e to say istanbul IN we e learned of it as con stantin ople the name the romans gave gane to what the greeks called by cantlum and in our secief thoughts though s it probably always will be constan dinople after the fall of the russian mon archy st petersburg Pete isburg became petro grad only to be later as leningrad all of which was to be expected from tl e mania of the bol tor for uprooting everything connected with the old regime then the norn Norvi egans eg ans changed the name of to oslo that of the old national capital across the bay china followed the fashion an anal when the capital of the lie ile was transferred to Isan king peking became heip ng in spite of our reputation for change the un ted states has d s played a surprising permanence in this respect our urban nomen no mencia cla ture derived not only aiom f A 0 m t the E eng n g ahe I 1 sh the french the S spanish p an h a and n d the indians but from the classic and any other stray books that might have been read by our more lettered city founders has persisted with little modification sometimes the names were difficult of pronoun elation or calculated to re lev ity but tl tie e original christening his generally held we might have re named rew new orleans for thomas jefferson or st augustine for an drew jackson as the english altered the name of new amsterdam to new york when they drove out tl e dutch during the war we even resisted the patriotic pressure to give the capital of north dakota a name less sug cestive of though we yielded on the point of sauerkraut at least for the duration of hostilities but bismarck remained bismarck and sauerkraut again became sauer kraut after a spell as liberty cab bage howeler howe er it may satisfy thee the ex agencies Igen cies of nationalism or local poll ties tics we hope for the sake of our hard learned store of geographical k knon noI ledge edge that other countries too will leave their city names as they are new york herald tribune |